Doctor Who: Regeneration Series Revisited - The First Regeneration
Polly: “What’s happened to you, Doctor?” First Doctor: ”Oh, I’m not sure, my dear. Comes from an outside influence. Unless this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin.”
Story (from “The Tenth Planet”, “Twice Upon A Time” and “Power Of The Daleks”):
The Doctor, and his companions Ben and Polly, land on Earth in 1986. They find themselves at a mission control base in Antarctica, which is monitoring a newly launched expedition into orbit that has suddenly found itself in trouble. Under intense suspicion for showing up out of nowhere, the Doctor urges the crew of the base to take more seriously the appearance of a planet that has appeared in a parallel orbit. Indeed, the planet bears a striking resemblance to Earth, but is a dead wasteland.
The planet is Mondas, a planet that used to be Earth’s twin planet, but was blown out of the solar system by unrevealed forces. The inhabitants had to quickly find a way to survive the loss of the sun, and replaced their organic body parts with robotics. Due to the intense pain and horror, they likewise removed all emotions, becoming the Cybermen. After millennia, Mondas has used up all it’s resources and is nothing more than a giant rock. It has now returned to Earth to drain its resources, but there’s good news: in exchange, the Cybermen will convert all humans to more Cybermen!
The Doctor is an active participant in the conflict, until episode 3 when he mysteriously collapses. When episode 4 rolls around, the Doctor comes to his senses to help, but finds he is more and more drained. He is present for the ultimate resolution; Mondas can not support draining the energy from Earth and disintegrates from the strain. With it, the Cybermen wither and die also. The Doctor staggers to his ship, the TARDIS, seemingly aware of something about to transpire.
Angrily refusing his regeneration, he comes across another man who likewise claims to be the Doctor, also refusing to regenerate. Their presence together creates a hiccup in time that pulls a soldier from World War I to that time, but also draws the attention of a mysterious group of crystalline entities. Their ship, the Testimony, seeks to capture the old soldier and both Doctors finally determine it is not for evil but as a project to store memories from those who are deceased. After restoring time to its normal flow and order, the Doctors separate and the First Doctor returns with his TARDIS back to Antarctica in 1986, just as Ben and Polly race to catch up to him. However, the two find they are locked out in the cold Antarctic.
Summoning all his strength, the Doctor finally manages to let them in before the TARDIS takes off in flight. He collapses on the ground, his long cloak and scarf covering his face. Polly pulls it aside in time to see a white glow envelope him. When the glow subsides, the Doctor has transformed into a younger man.
Ben thinks this man is an imposter, but Polly has an open mind and wants to believe this is still the Doctor. The Doctor sits up, and can’t focus properly. Through his point of view, we see his vision is blurred and a piercing cry is in his head. He shouts to himself “Slower! Slower! Concentrate on one thing!” Ben and Polly notice he doesn’t just look differently than the Doctor, but acts differently as well. The Doctor looks at himself in a mirror, noticing his new face, and briefly hallucinates seeing the old man he just was. Ben points out that the Doctor’s ring doesn’t fit anymore, and the Doctor replies “I'd like to see a butterfly fit into a chrysalis case after it spreads its wings.”
This Doctor is more mischievous, and talks to himself in quiet tones, almost not even noticing Ben and Polly’s existence. The TARDIS lands, and the Doctor strolls out quickly, intent on seeing what is out there. Ben and Polly follow, and find themselves on the planet Vulcan, where an Earth colony has found a derelict Dalek spacecraft submerged in the lava fields. Even in a new body, the Doctor must still contend with his oldest and deadliest threat…
Production:
The production team at Doctor Who were in a pickle in 1966. The show had been running for three years, was immensely successful, and the show’s knack for churning out episodes on exceptionally small budgets made production easy. But the actor playing the title character, William Hartnell, had arteriosclerosis and the stress of constant production was increasingly hard on him. In those days, much of television was recorded “as live” – you’d get one take, and time wouldn’t permit you to do any others. Hartnell was starting to blow lines more and more, and simply couldn’t keep up with the pace at which the episodes were being filmed. Granted, it was far more grueling in those days; they had to rehearse and film an episode every week for 48 weeks a year.
The production team and Hartnell both acknowledged that it might be time to move on. There were a couple ways out that were considered, notably in “The Celestial Toymaker”, there was a draft that included the Toymaker, a being of immense power, turning the Doctor invisible and then a couple episodes later having him reappear, but look different – a final joke from the Toymaker. This idea was dismissed, as it was felt it would have no emotional impact, and be the subject of angry reviews.
One of the writers had the foresight to include a line in “The Daleks’ Master Plan” wherein a Dalek insinuated that the Doctor’s humanoid form was not his true form. And although that line went unexplored in the series, the production team decided that since it was established that the Doctor was an alien, and that it was totally vague as to his origins, why not have him change bodies?
The team were very picky about who they wanted, screening hundreds of actors for a suitable replacement. After much deliberation, the team and Hartnell both concluded that the only man who could possibly take up the role was Patrick Troughton, well known as the first man to play Robin Hood on television. Very early on it was decided that the approach to the character would be different as well; this Doctor would be more energetic and youthful, and a “cosmic hobo”. Troughton took the role seriously, and reviews were mixed at first (one reviewer complained that it was like taking someone’s favourite grandfather and turning him into a clown), but in retrospect, Troughton’s Second Doctor is much more fondly remembered than Hartnell.
The question became of how to present the change. The first thought was to simply have the cloak drawn over the Doctor’s face, and then pulled away to reveal Troughton. But team member Shirley Coward accidentally discovered a way to overexpose the film to a white out during a video mix. The effect was so poignant that variants of it were kept through the original series’ entire run.
At the time, the idea was simply that the Doctor had been renewed – that he had reversed his aging process, and it’s easy to see that Troughton is a fairly good physical match for Hartnell. Official continuity stated for years afterwards that this process was not regeneration, but a renewal, and didn’t count. However, by the time of the Fifth Doctor, it was decided to simply have this accepted as regeneration.
The team’s gamble paid off. Within that season, Doctor Who not only kept it’s fan base, but added more who were interested in such an unusual plot development, and if it were to happen again.
Further to that, in late 2017, the production team decided to revisit this sequence playing up the notion that the First Doctor was terrified of his first regeneration. Apparently there was a line in the original script for “The Tenth Planet” that featured the Doctor fighting the change, but this was cut by director Derek Martinus to save time.
David Bradley, an actor who had appeared in both Doctor Who and portrayed William Hartnell in An Adventure In Time and Space, was a logical choice for casting as the First Doctor and the old TARDIS exterior and interior were showcased in the episode “Twice Upon A Time”, with startling attention to detail.
Analysis:
So why did the Doctor regenerate?
There’s two popular theories floating around. The first is old age. He had been exerting himself for too long, and was already very old (probably somewhere between 350 – 450 years old). The second is that the Doctor only collapsed once the energy drain from Mondas began. It could be that the process the Cybermen were using in some way pulled energy from the Doctor as well. Maybe his already advanced age could not handle the additional strain of the drain.
Personally, I lean towards old age. Less than a year before, the Doctor was involved in “The Daleks’ Master Plan”, where the climax involves a weapon called the Time Destructor (ahhh…the 60’s), which induces rapid aging. The Doctor was significantly aged before his companion Steven was able to reverse the weapon, but there’s nothing to say that it completely reversed the effects of the weapon. And that doesn’t take into account the taxing adventures he had the past three years. Prior to the series’ start, there was mention of past adventures, but nothing to the extent of what they began to go through in the series. And to top it off, in one of Hartnell’s last stories, “The Savages”, the Doctor is hooked up to a machine that transfers a lot of his life force to one of the Elders, to sustain him. Even though the process didn’t completely drain him, it seems likely that this must have contributed.
It should be noted that the Doctor regenerates in the TARDIS, and the regeneration seems to go well, all things considered. The Doctor even comments (a bit enigmatically) that the regeneration is a function of the TARDIS. There’s some speculation as to if that’s true or not, but almost all his regenerations take place near or in the TARDIS. Perhaps it’s less of an active function, but rather an aid to the regeneration. When we get to the Fifth Doctor, we’ll talk about how necessary an aspect of the TARDIS is to his regeneration.
The regeneration was written in very well, and makes sense within the context of the series. By this point, Hartnell had continually seen companions come and go over the course of three years, and viewers had gotten to the point where there were few surprises in the series. The TARDIS was not shocking and amazing any more. The novelty of appearing far in the past, or deep into the future had worn off and was expected. Aliens and monsters were trying to top each other for design and scariness. With that in mind, to suddenly have the title character regenerate was something new to talk about, and brought more mystery back into the series. The production team saw a future where everything was stale, took a sad reality, and used it to infuse new life into the series.
And as far as “Twice Upon A Time” goes, I have mixed feelings. Seeing the old TARDIS and the First Doctor again were real treats. But they mischaracterized the First Doctor quite a bit. First, they really played up his sexism. The comments about women and his outright astonishment at Bill being a lesbian were just not reflective of who he was in that form. He was short-tempered at times, yes, and could be condescending to both men and women, but we didn’t see his warmth here. After a rocky start with Barbara, the Doctor came to her to mend bridges and demonstrate real humanity in “The Edge of Destruction.” And there was real gentleness in “The Aztecs” with his interactions with Cameca. The Doctor was far more enlightened (”woke”?) than this episode gave him credit. I grew a little uncomfortable and kind of sad for William Hartnell watching how dismissive the series was being of his time as the Doctor. Ah well.
Now as for “The Power of The Daleks” - wow! This story is really strong and shockingly brutal. Troughton needed a strong start to convince audiences that he was up for the challenge, and he came in surprisingly well. He was able to bring all the necessary elements of his character out in just a few short episodes. He was playful, charming, diabolical, cautionary, dangerous, and wise. And this was no happy ending; the story ends with the entire colony massacred.
It really looked as if Doctor Who was going to continue its success, and who knew what other surprises the production team had in store.
And Another Thing…
Whoops! The Doctor’s clothes also regenerated, it seems.
Polly: “Then you DID change.” Second Doctor: “Life depends on change, and renewal.” Ben: “Oh, that’s it, you’ve been renewed, have you?” Second Doctor: “Renewed? Have I? That’s it, I’ve been renewed. It’s part of the TARDIS. Without it I couldn’t survive.”
